We stayed here from April 15-22 2017. Our wedding day was April 20, 2017.

I'll start out by saying that the resort, itself, is beautiful. If it wasn't for the poor service on our actual wedding day, I would consider coming back to visit the resort and explore it a little more. The trolley's take you everywhere you need to be - Akumal is right on the ocean so I would probably stay there, but from Coba it was only a 10 min trolley ride away. The food was good, the entertainment at night was a lot of fun and for the most part, our guests loved it there and all said they had a great time.  

That being said, I wanted to warn and inform future couples about our experience if they plan to have their wedding day there. 

First of all, it rained the entire day all the way up till dinner time - which meant we were having to face the fact that we would not be getting our beach wedding. No one is to blame for that of course, it just meant we had to adjust to the back up plan. A back up plan that was never discussed or talked about at our meeting. I suppose we just all assumed it would be a sunny day and we wouldn't have to worry about it. That was our first mistake - when you go to your meeting, make sure you have a list of everything you need to ask and write out how you'd like the day to go in detail and run it by your coordinator. Have them show you where the ceremony location is (we had to ask to see it, she was rushed since she had another wedding going on so I didn't think she was going to show us), and ask them to show you what plan B's locations look like. 

Before our meeting, Tropic One Studio took us aside to do their sales pitch, not knowing we already had a photographer that came to Coba with us and stayed with her family. Once they found out we didn't need their services, they said we needed to pay a $500US fee. Obviously, we were not happy about this. We argued - our photographer came and paid to be on the resort with her family for an entire week. We were the reason they were there. How is it even possibly fair that we are charged a fee? We later complained in an email to the resort and they said we were not forced to sign or pay anything. Are they serious? I just don't understand what grounds they stand on with that. We would not have been allowed to have our photographer there if we hadn't. My husband said he'd pay $400 US but that's it and they accepted no questions asked. Makes me wonder if he had said $300, they would have taken that - seems a bit sketchy to me. 

After the meeting with our coordinator - I ended up having more questions but it is actually impossible to get a hold of the coordinator. I tried the front desk, but they sent me to go back to my room to call her from there for some reason. No answer. No answer at the front desk to see if they would transfer me. Lost cause. No one was willing to help us out. 

The morning of - everything was going okay minus the rain. The Coba salon did a fantastic job on my hair. I had Martha, and she was very quick and talented! I was happy with the salon services overall. The coordinator picked us up at the salon with my flowers (which were beautiful), and took us back to the room - I appreciated that she met us there so we didn't have to walk in the rain. One thing though - I asked her many times in our emails prior to the trip if I could have a flower for my hair, (which she said would not be an issue) and again when she picked us up and she said she didn't have one for me. I always pictured having a tropical flower for my wedding day hair, but that was another thing I had to accept that I wasn't going to get. Note to future brides - bring your own!!

So we're a few hours before the ceremony, and the coordinator had just dropped us off at the room and she wanted to have me decide if we were to keep plan A or go to plan B. Since there was still time for it to clear and 47% chance of rain by the time our ceremony came - I decided to stick with plan A. Big mistake. As soon as I signed that piece of paper, they gave away my plan B. Shouldn't they be more prepared for rainy day weddings and have more option for plan B's? It's a massive resort, I don't understand why that had to happen.

It was still pouring by the time we were supposed to be there, so of course, they had to scramble to put us somewhere - they decided Tulum's buffet dining room in front of a foggy window would be best choice. One of my guests spoke up and (thank goodness) suggested we at least be put in front of the fountain. She also had to tell them to move the tables out of the way, and stop people from coming in. I remember walking back down the isle and seeing the people were still walking through the area during and sitting at tables. The ceremony music I had picked was played correctly for the most part except for when we went to do the signing, the people operating the music must not have been paying attention because they didn't start playing the music until the last person signed so it sounded funny playing for about 2 seconds before they turned it off again. Also, they spelled my last name wrong on the certificate. Maybe that's something worth mentioning at the meeting and double checking that they spelt your names right.

We had the romantic trio join us as we walked back down the isle. It was awesome and we were happy we made the decision to have them. It was a bit awkward because we were crammed in the dining room, when normally this would all take place outside and no one knew what they were supposed to be doing. We ended up having a romantic trio parade across the resort to their lobby bar so we could have drinks and listen to the rest of their performance. It was confusing at first but then it turned out to be really fun. I'm assuming we got moved so that they could open the buffet fully again. It was a bit of a cluster but my guests enjoyed it once we were settled. 

We had our dinner at Oasis. A few mishaps but nothing over the top, overall it was nice and I liked how they set up the tables. My coordinator didn't put out my frames that had my guests names on it that showed where everyone was to sit though so I was annoyed about this again but left it alone. 

The rain had stopped when we arrived at Oasis and I had in my mind that we would be able to still go to the plan A location for the reception. Not so much - We were going to the lower level of the Coba lobby, which was the worst of it all. It was SO hot, and uncomfortable. They did a nice job on decorating the table, but the room was so big and plain that it just looked funny with our small group. I was really upset with having to be in the basement for our reception. I couldn't help but think of all the money we had spent to be there, all to be put in a room like that. I wish I had known what our options were and given the opportunity to be clear on things with my coordinator, I would have never agreed to that location. 

Everyone had fun dancing, and thank goodness we had a good group that wouldn't let us feel down about anything. We were there for 2 hours, and by the end everyone was relieved to get outside for fresh air and breath again. The coordinator's assistant came up and asked me how things were, and I blantly said I didn't like the locations they had chose. She looked disappointed so I just said, it's fine. I was so tired by that time I didn't have it in me to figure things out. 

I had taken my wristband off for the day so it wouldn't be photographed (they said we could). We only had our DJ till 10, the group was leaving to go the Hacienda to keep the drinks and dancing going but you can't get in there without your wristband. It took them 45 minutes to get me another one at the front desk. 45 minutes! Here my group is waiting to leave and the bride is stuck at the front desk. It was just another kick while we were down from ultimately, a cluster of a day. My advice - have your coordinator get you one ahead of time and give it to you at the end of the night! They should have told us it takes forever to get a new bracelet and helped us out.

You really are on your own for the day as far as figuring things out. If you don't ask, they don't offer.

That's not all! The next morning I was looking forward to our so called "Romantic breakfast in bed" that the package claimed we should get. Surely, they could at least get this right for us. We asked for it to be there for 8am. Why we even wasted our breath on booking it, phases me. 8 am, nothing. 8:30, nothing. 9, 9:30 comes around... nothing. I could not believe that they continued to disappoint. I felt very much forgotten about. The lack of communication between departments, staff members, and guests is insane. Finally we called concierge to see where it was. It was never on its way. The so-called romantic candlelit dinner they promise you in your package that night as well, is nothing different then what you get when you go to a la carte as a regular guest. Well, maybe it's different but most likely it wasn't communicated that we were bride and groom.

We ended up going to the wedding department the next day to discuss how things went and pick up our decorations. We were directed to the manager, and we let her know how unhappy we were. She was not concerned with what we had to say fought right back. She said that they had our ceremony set up outside in the rain and they lost a piece of equipment because of it and they weren't going to charge us for it - as if they were doing us a favour. I'm confused as to how that would be our responsibility and why that even needed to be mentioned. Also, I mentioned that the decoration we paid for wasn't at the ceremony, but she claimed it was. I looked through our pictures and saw that it definitely wasn't. I suppose it was still at plan A's location and didn't get moved. I started crying from just ultimately being disappointed and realizing that they truly don't care about how our day went. She gave me a tissue and softened up a bit and offered to give us a thing at the spa but my husband doesn't enjoy that stuff and it wasn't going to make things better. She then gave us a survey to fill out, basically just so we would get out of her hair. I don't know what we wanted from that meeting, but we left incredibly frustrated and overall saddened that our dream wedding was not even close to what we always imagined. 

One thing I would like to be clear on - I am fully aware that our wedding day is not focused on the where or the how. It's about the fact that we committed ourselves to one another  and had the opportunity to do it in front of our friends and family. I get to be with my favourite person for the rest of my life and call him my husband. We are fortunate enough to be able to afford to be in Mexico surrounded by beautiful landscapes and warm weather. I know all these things, and we did our very best to smile through it all and make the very best of it. 

That being said, as a 5 star resort, I had in my mind that we would be taken better care of. I thought we would receive better service and not be forgotten about when we spent a good amount to be there, and bring a group of people who spent their money to be there as well. 

I will not be booking with a Bahia Principe again, or recommend this resort to any future bride and grooms.